The use of remote video directly observed therapy to improve both inhaler technique and adherence to asthma medications.

Incorrect inhaler technique and non-adherence to inhaled preventer therapy often is the cause of poorly controlled asthma. Detecting and correcting non-adherence in asthma therapy has proven difficult. In addition, while patients may be able to demonstrate correct inhaler technique at the clinic recent evidence suggests that critical errors in inhaler technique occur in the home setting.

How to interpret spirometry in a child with suspected asthma.

Asthma is one of the most common chronic disorders of childhood. The typical symptoms are a result of reversible airway obstruction. There is no 'gold-standard' test to diagnose asthma, but the most commonly used investigation to help with a diagnosis is spirometry.

Patient and public involvement in paediatric medical education.

The benefits of involving patients and the public in medical education are well documented, however there is a need to further explore how this can be translated to the setting of paediatric medical education. This article aims to identify how organisations can facilitate the involvement of paediatric patients and their parents/carers.While involving children in research can present challenges, we describe examples where organisations have successfully involved young people in clinical research and selection of research topics.

Implementation of a Children's Safe Asthma Discharge Care Pathway Reduces the Risk of Future Asthma Attacks in Children-A Retrospective Quality Improvement Report.

Background: Many children attend Emergency Departments (ED) and Out of Hours (OoH) frequently for acute asthma. Follow up care is often suboptimal leaving these children at risk of a future attacks. We report on the development, implementation and evaluation of a safe asthma discharge care pathway (SADCP).

How we teach children with asthma to use their inhaler: a scoping review.

Background: One reason that asthma remains poorly controlled in children is poor inhaler technique. Guidelines recommend checking inhaler technique at each clinical visit. However, they do not specify how best to train children to mastery of correct inhaler technique.

Comparison of medical student performance in summative undergraduate paediatric examinations and a clinician-designed minimum accepted competency (MAC) assessment.

Background: It is recognised that newly qualified doctors feel unprepared in many areas of their daily practice and that there is a gap between what students learn during medical school and their clinical responsibilities early in their postgraduate career. This study aimed to assess if undergraduate students and junior paediatric doctors met a Minimum Accepted Competency (MAC) of knowledge.

Methods: The knowledge of undergraduates and junior paediatric doctors was quantitatively assessed by their performance on a 30-item examination (the MAC examination).

Use of oximetry to screen for paediatric obstructive sleep apnoea: is one night enough and is 6 hours too much?

Introduction: Nocturnal pulse oximetry can be used to screen for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) using the McGill Oximetry Score (MOS). The MOS has a time threshold for a technically adequate study of 6 hours. It has been suggested that one night of oximetry is sufficient to screen for OSA using the MOS.

How we teach children with asthma to use their inhaler: a scoping review protocol.

Background: One reason that asthma remains poorly controlled in children is poor inhaler technique. Current guidelines recommend checking inhaler technique at each clinical visit. However, they do not specify how best to train children to mastery of correct inhaler technique.

Familiarity with the clinical environment, achieved by priming, improves time to antibiotic administration in a simulated paediatric sepsis scenario: a randomised control trial.

Aim: The early administration of antibiotics in sepsis reduces mortality and improves outcomes. This randomised control trial evaluated the effect of environmental priming (EP) on healthcare student performance in a simulated paediatric sepsis scenario.

Methods: Medical and nursing students were randomised into primed and unprimed groups.

Exposure and attitudes to adolescent health amongst Paediatric trainees in Northern Ireland: a mixed-methods study.

Aims: To determine the exposure and attitudes of paediatric trainees towards adolescent medicine.

Methods: All paediatric trainees in the Northern Ireland deanery (n=107) were invited to participate in an online survey in March 2016. The questionnaire was based on the 'Modified Perceptions of Adolescent Issues and Resources: Care of Adolescents' questionnaire.

Calibration of confidence and assessed clinical skills competence in undergraduate paediatric OSCE scenarios: a mixed methods study.

Background: The relationship between confidence and competence in clinical skills development is complex but important. This study aims to determine undergraduate paediatric student confidence in performing three common paediatric clinical skills framed as Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) scenarios and to compare this with subsequent assessed performance. The study also aims to explore possible barriers to successful paediatric skills completion.

Night-to-night variation of pulse oximetry in children with sleep-disordered breathing.

Background: Sleep-disordered breathing is a common and serious feature of many paediatric conditions and is particularly a problem in children with Down syndrome. Overnight pulse oximetry is recommended as an initial screening test, but it is unclear how overnight oximetry results should be interpreted and how many nights should be recorded.

Methods: This retrospective observational study evaluated night-to-night variation using statistical measures of repeatability for 214 children referred to a paediatric respiratory clinic, who required overnight oximetry measurements.

Differential cytopathogenesis of respiratory syncytial virus prototypic and clinical isolates in primary pediatric bronchial epithelial cells.

Background: Human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes severe respiratory disease in infants. Airway epithelial cells are the principle targets of RSV infection. However, the mechanisms by which it causes disease are poorly understood.

A 3-D well-differentiated model of pediatric bronchial epithelium demonstrates unstimulated morphological differences between asthmatic and nonasthmatic cells.

There is a need for reproducible and effective models of pediatric bronchial epithelium to study disease states such as asthma. We aimed to develop, characterize, and differentiate an effective, an efficient, and a reliable three-dimensional model of pediatric bronchial epithelium to test the hypothesis that children with asthma differ in their epithelial morphologic phenotype when compared with nonasthmatic children. Primary cell cultures from both asthmatic and nonasthmatic children were grown and differentiated at the air-liquid interface for 28 d.